Posted 12:04 PM by Paul
Pet Disasters


I got home on Friday and was greeted at the door by Alice. Breathless and excited she was screaming with joy at the top of her voice. I couldn't understand a word. Then Heather came to translate. Alice had been conferred the ultimate honour. Her teacher had chosen her to look after the new class pets during the half term holidays. Three tadpoles which were just morphing into frogs. She has carried the vivarium home at about half a mile and hour and followed the instructions. Change the water feed them green-fly. Two expired within an hour of getting them home and the kids made tadpole coffins and graves for them

When Alice discovered that the last tadpole had passed away she let out a terrible scream. She had been trusted by Miss Valerie to look after them and she felt that she had let her teacher down. Heather explained patiently that in her experience all class pets taken home for the holidays die. That's just the way it is. It was the kind of event that I would have caused me to get on the phone to mum. I can hear her chuckling.

"Aaah poor love. Give her a cuddle from her grandma."

But where mum is or isn't there are no phones.

The whole incident brought to mind the day my tortoise disappeared for the last time and she consoled me. Or when a few weeks after dad's death I found my rabbit Sydney dead in his hutch. I was too upset to go straight to school but arrived late and explained the disaster to form teacher Mr. Wright who was understanding. Mum promised that she would take Sydney to the vets where he would be disposed of properly but would have to burn his wooden hutch to prevent any disease spreading. I came home that night to see the charred remains of Sydney's home and a telltale rabbit bone in the ashes. But I was OK about it and kept my mouth shut. I played along with mum's story, as I didn't want to upset her and besides Sydney had entered into history like Alice's tadpoles. She is OK now and planning Mellissa's birthday party. Mellissa is a cat.

Years later mum insisted that my brother David had caught the encephalitis virus that nearly killed him from my rabbit Sydney. We dismissed mum's ramblings an explained in patronising tones that it was proven scientific fact that viruses could not move from animals to humans. CJD and avian flu may have proved her right.

But tonight the pressing question is "Where can I buy three replacement frogs before the kids go back to school?